Invidia
by ConcertiGrossi
Summary: In almost every respect, Phil Coulson has exceeded all expectations, and achieved success beyond his wildest dreams. In almost every respect. (A character study of envy and loneliness, in three parts.)


This is for Mandergee, for the 2015 Lump of Coul exchange! As one of the prompts, she chose "Coulson, alone."  
I may have run and carried this a little too far. :)

2004 

Lian May was going to kill them.

Really, she was going to kill them all. She would have her coworkers disappear them in the middle of the night and they'd end up in Guantanamo.

If they were lucky.

Coulson was pretty sure that, afterwards, Fury would send over a sharply-worded note in protest, but that was really about as far as he would dare to go.

 _Nobody_ crossed Lian May.

This madness had all started a week ago, when Melinda had come to him with a desperate plea for aid.

"I can't do it, Phil, I just can't. She's going to turn this into a three-ring circus. You've got to help me," May had pleaded.

"And Andrew's all right with it? With the two of you eloping?" he'd asked.

"It was his idea. He said he feared for my sanity."

So they'd arranged to go to the Justice of the Peace, with Phil and Andrew's brother Joshua to witness. The vows were made, the papers were signed, and so Melinda May and Andrew Garner were well and truly married.

The party had then repaired to a nearby restaurant for a nice celebratory dinner, and to fortify themselves for the coming explosion. Between dinner and dessert, Melinda and Andrew got up to dance while Phil and Joshua ordered another round.

"Her mother is going to kill us all," said Joshua.

"No, I think your brother might survive," said Phil. "She likes Andrew the best."

And seeing Melinda in Andrew's arms on that dance floor, under the soft glow of the lights on the dance floor, Phil Coulson burned with envy.

Jealousy was definitely not in the cards, whatever Mel's mother might have suspected. Andrew hadn't taken Melinda from him – his fling with Melinda had ended years ago, and they were both the happier for it. No, Phil had congratulated the happy couple and fervently wished them all the joy in the world; he had stood up for them with a glad heart. Here and now, he watched Andrew and Melinda as they moved across the floor, concentrating only on each others' eyes.

They were so very much in love.

They faced a hard road: the odds of a SHIELD agent achieving and maintaining domestic bliss were very slim indeed. Out of his small circle of friends, Phil knew of six divorces, two impending legal separations, two unfortunate widows and one widower. (Admittedly, three of the divorces were John Garrett's, and as an outlier he probably shouldn't have been counted. But the point was still valid.)

Regardless of this, and heedless of all the challenges and traumas they might face in the future, Phil envied them with every fiber of his being.

2007

If they had been coming to visit anyone else, Phil would've figured that he and Natasha would have spent Thanksgiving in the Des Moines airport but, as it was, when Clint Barton rolled up to the curb in a Humvee through the blinding snow, Phil wasn't even a little surprised.

"Yeah, the weather doesn't always cooperate," Clint said as he helped them with their bags. "And they've closed the interstate, so we're going to have to take the side roads. Could get a little bumpy."

"A little bumpy" was an understatement. They lurched their way across the frozen landscape for what felt like hours. Finally, they turned up what according to Phil's best guess seemed to be a driveway and crested the hill, Clint stopped the car and gestured to the farmhouse below.

"Home sweet home!" he grinned at his exhausted passengers. Phil looked over to where he was pointing.

It was almost ludicrously beautiful.

Barton's home was the very picture of a 19th century farmhouse, white with green shutters, and golden light spilled from the windows through and across the snow. A female figure appeared at the doorway, a child on her hip, and waved to them.

Clint's grin grew improbably wider, and he threw the Humvee back into gear. They descended and parked by the house, trudging through the hip-deep snowdrifts to get onto the porch. The woman flung the door open wide.

"I can't believe you actually drove through all this… Hi, I'm Laura," she said to them, "And come inside right now, you must be freezing."

She efficiently bustled them inside. Introductions were made, ("Clint's told me so much about you both!") and, once they were settled in, hot chocolate around the kitchen table. Two-year-old Cooper clutched his sippy cup tightly and buried his face in his mother's shoulder to hide from these strangers, but cautiously peeked his head out as the adults talked and laughed. Finally, the boy's curiosity got the better of him – he wriggled out of his mother's arms, and slowly approached Phil.

Silence fell in the kitchen as Cooper toddled over. Moving slowly and carefully, Clint crouched down next to his son.

"Cooper, this is your Uncle Phil. Can you say hi?"

Uncle Phil? Nevertheless, he returned the boy's tentative wave.

"And this is your Auntie Natasha." Clint said, pointing at Nat.

Phil tried to get a read on Natasha's true feelings – if he was out of his depth, then Natasha was doubly so – but that was never an easy task.

"Hello, Cooper," she said calmly.

"Tee-Tasha!" he exclaimed, to general amusement. Cooper broke out his cherubic grin in response, evidently having decided that these new people were all right after all. Now that the ice was broken, he walked up to Phil and offered him his sippy cup.

"Thank you, Cooper," said Phil very seriously, and pretended to drink from the spout, because what the hell else do you do when a two-year-old hands you his sippy cup? He barely even glanced up when he heard the tell-tale clicks of a camera shutter.

"Barton, you're fired," he said conversationally, handing Cooper his cup back.

Clint roared with laughter. "I'm gonna put a poster in every breakroom at HQ!"

"Oh my God, Clint, you're not..." said Laura, obviously trying not to crack up.

"No, I think it's great," contributed Natasha, smiling. "We've got blackmail fodder _forever_."

"Nobody's going to believe you," said Phil, mock-annoyed. "They're just going to assume that it's Photoshopped."

Cooper thought this whole argument was hilarious and, without so much as a by-your-leave, climbed up in Natasha's lap and settled there as if he'd been doing it all his life. Natasha, quite shocked, nevertheless caught up after a second or two, and held him securely so he wouldn't fall.

Clint looked over at his son and Natasha approvingly.

"Can I…?" he tentatively asked his wife in a quiet voice.

"What, they don't already know?" A beaming smile belied her sarcastic answer. "I thought you all were spies..."

Clint chuckled, then looked down at the table.

"Coop's going to have a tough time when he's no longer the center of attention..." he said steadily, letting the sentence spin off in the air.

It took a moment, but the penny dropped.

"That's wonderful news!" said Natasha, who caught on first. "When are you due?"

"Not for a long time yet. It's still really early… a lot could go wrong..." hedged Laura.

"Congratulations!" Phil finally managed to choke out. "We'll have to see about getting you more downtime, Clint..." Inwardly, he kicked himself. Surely he could have come up with something better to say?

"Honestly, that would be the best present you could give me," said Laura sincerely. Clint wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. Heedless of their company, they kissed.

Phil swallowed around a lump in his throat, and suddenly took a great interest in the dregs of his cocoa. He was thrilled for his colleague, his comrade-in-arms and, dare he say it, his friend. Clint Barton made an unlikely paterfamilias: a onetime loner who had changed his tune completely, who had put down deep, sturdy roots in the heartland to avenge a rootless childhood. No one in the world deserved this happiness more.

And oh, how Phil coveted it!

He glanced over at Natasha's face, trying to think of something to say, and, to his great surprise, saw the same naked emotion reflected there. The flash of feeling was gone in a millisecond – it took a lot for a graduate of the Red Room to lose her much-vaunted composure – but nevertheless, for that brief instant, it had been evident for anyone to see.

Phil suddenly felt a lot less alone in his solitude.

2013

"Tonight! On Live From Lincoln Center! The New York Philharmonic is proud to welcome Audrey Nathan as our guest soloist, performing Dvorak's "Cello Concerto in B minor," Opus 104. Ms. Nathan is making her Lincoln Center debut to kick off her winter tour..."

Phil had to stop doing this.

He told himself it wasn't _actually_ stalking if he was just following her career. After all, she was a public figure. "An up-and-coming star" was the general consensus, with "The Next Jacqueline du Pre!" being another widely held opinion. He was careful – he purposefully hadn't attended any of her concerts in person, but he bought all her released albums, and watched her broadcast performances in his office on the Bus at 30,000 feet. There could be no harm in that.

He was especially looking forward to tonight's concert – no matter what, Phil could never tire of hearing her play, and the Dvorak was one of his favorites. It was an intensely passionate piece, and she played it to perfection, the instrument and the bow merely becoming extensions of her self. He poured himself a drink, and sat back to enjoy the music.

It was the most exquisite torture.

Their interlude had been beautiful. She was kind and beautiful and gentle and, most importantly, he could stop being Agent Coulson in her presence – he could just be "Phil." No alien-fighting, billionaire-wrangling or world-saving required.

He missed her so. Just over a year later, and the pain had barely reduced. What's more, with each passing day, it would be harder and harder (if he ever would even have the chance) to explain the situation and earn her forgiveness.

He hoped he hadn't hurt her too badly.

May's head popped up at the top of the staircase.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

"Sure," he tried (and failed) to not sound choked up.

"You okay?" she asked, concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied. "Why?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious, May, I'm fine."

"Try again, you're still not selling it." She climbed up the rest of the staircase, stood straight across from him and just stared.

He folded his arms and glared right back.

"So I should go downstairs and see who hacked the SHIELDSAT network transceiver on my plane in order to intercept a broadcast of the New York Philharmonic?" she asked sardonically. "Maybe it was Ward..."

He sighed and slumped back down on the couch.

"It wasn't," he said.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," she said.

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to will away the impending stress headache. He heard May's steps as she crossed the room, and the trickling sound of liquid being poured into a glass.

"Here. You look like you could use another one." She handed him one of the heavy SHIELD tumblers containing a healthy dose of scotch. He took it, and she sat down next to him.

"Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" she finally asked.

"I keep meaning to stop. I know I say that every time."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"You've no idea," he said finally. He took another hit off his drink. "No idea how many times I've come close to just telling her. But you know what the one line I can't cross is?"

"What?"

"The Avengers can't find out. That's the one rule."

"She's not an Avenger," Melinda said carefully.

"No. But they sent Pepper Potts and Captain Rogers to tell her I was dead. She and Pepper apparently hit it off, and now they're BFFs."

"Did you just say 'BFFs?' Phil, I may take that drink back – how many of those have you had?"

"So I can't let her know I'm alive because she's too damned close."

Melinda took in and let out a long breath.

Phil finished the drink and turned the glass over in his hand, tracing the SHIELD eagle with his fingertips. "I keep telling myself, that's just the life. It's what I signed up for, the price of being part of something bigger than yourself. SHIELD has a proud history, and… and a bright future. We keep the world safe. Gotta trust the system."

"I think you're drunk, Phil."

"Am not!" Indignantly, he tried to stand, and wobbled. "All right, maybe I am, a little."

She gave a half-smile. "You should get to bed."

"Yeah, you're probably right." He turned to go, then stopped. "Mel, how…?" _How did you cut him out of your heart? How did you manage to do that? You were so in love with him…_ He came to his senses before he could form these unforgivable questions into words. Of course it was something she could manage: she had always been better at controlling her emotions than he was, and he'd always envied her that.

"How what?"

"Never mind. You're a good friend, Mel…"

"Now I know you're drunk. Let's go," she said, smiling.

-0-

Melinda got him tucked into bed, and returned to the cockpit. The Bus soared on into the night. Usually, the sight of the ocean and land disappearing beneath them soothed her, but right now she was oblivious. She'd fought with Fury for days over the necessity of bringing in during Coulson's recovery, but she'd been overruled.

She was now even more convinced she'd been in the right.

She was also sure that, sooner rather than later, there would be a reckoning. Coulson was too resourceful, too persistent NOT to find out enough sketchy details about his time in TAHITI, and on that day Fury would have to face the music.

She didn't envy him that in the least.


End file.
